Many of you B.A.N.D. (Breed Awareness, Not Discrimination) members have
been here with me and so many others since Denver reenacted the breed ban in May
of 2005. Various members have done and continue to do rescue, fostering, letter
writing, phone calls, and every other kind of action that goes into helping
those affected or changing these insane laws to something saner, kinder, and
smarter than rounding up family dogs and killing them. 

 

Lately, for several reasons, I've not sent out much information about what
is going on with the court cases or what you can do to help if you're looking
to. A small part of those reasons is that doing some of this is hard and awful
and I just plain don't want to relive it by telling others–I've pretty much
clammed up as a defense mechanism. For me, one of the worst aspects of this is
helping people through the system to get their dogs out. Animal control does not
make this easy and anyway, almost everyone is scared and crying, and that's just
the people.

 

When these people go to visit their dogs in the Denver shelter, and have to
leave their dogs there–actually walk away–as the dogs are screaming to go with
them, it is almost too much to take. And the dogs have no idea how they got from
their comfy sofas to that concrete hellhole. I know many of you on this list
have experienced this firsthand and some of you have said you've never heard
your dog make that panicky sound before.

 

The point of this is that so many people do not know what the end
result of breed discriminatory legislation is. I've heard people say, “Oh, you
just can't have them there.”

 

No! That is not it at all. Not even close. 

 

Breed discriminatory legislation manifests itself in the rounding up and
killing of good, well-loved, well-trained, passive, sweet, family dogs. I've
included photos as proof that that is the end result of a breed ban. Please do your part and help spread the word. I can attest that
these are indeed photos from Denver's breed ban as I took them myself.

 

Also, there's so much need out there with the dogs, even if you don't want
to send these disgusting photos out or don't want to become an advocate for
people going through the system, there is plenty more you can do with whatever
time and resources you have. We need it all and we need it now! Thank you!

Your tired friend,

Xxxxx

 

 

About the photos…

 

These are pictures of just one load of dogs that Denver has rounded up and
killed as part of their breed ban. “Well,” you might say, “dogs are killed every
day in shelters across the land.” Yes, they are and it is all awful. But these
were dogs who had homes. These were owned dogs that got picked
up and killed for what they look like, not for anything they did. Underneath
this pile of dead dogs, but not shown, were something like twelve puppies that
were not even weaned yet. The photographer wanted to show them, but didn't have
the heart to move the bodies of the adults around to show the puppies. Either
way, this is how a breed ban manifests itself–in the rounding up and killing
family dogs.